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Slithering Into a Brave New Viper

1 of 7SRT's new Viper debuted at the New York auto show. Visit autoweek.com/viperweek for details on the new Viper.

Photo by Boyd Jaynes - boydphoto.com

2 of 7SRT's new Viper debuted at the New York auto show. Visit autoweek.com/viperweek for details on the new Viper.

Photo by Boyd Jaynes - boydphoto.com

3 of 7SRT's new Viper debuted at the New York auto show. Visit autoweek.com/viperweek for details on the new Viper.

Photo by Boyd Jaynes - boydphoto.com

4 of 7SRT's new Viper debuted at the New York auto show. Visit autoweek.com/viperweek for details on the new Viper.

Photo by Boyd Jaynes - boydphoto.com

5 of 7SRT's new Viper debuted at the New York auto show. Visit autoweek.com/viperweek for details on the new Viper.

Photo by Boyd Jaynes - boydphoto.com

6 of 7SRT's new Viper debuted at the New York auto show. Visit autoweek.com/viperweek for details on the new Viper.

Photo by Boyd Jaynes - boydphoto.com

7 of 7SRT's new Viper debuted at the New York auto show. Visit autoweek.com/viperweek for details on the new Viper.

Photo by Boyd Jaynes - boydphoto.com

There isn't an auto journalist worth a damn who hasn't been bitten in the ass by a Viper. Disrespect the snake, even for a second, and—ssssttttrike!—you're toast.

The Dodge Viper was effective in huge-engine, massive-tire style, with decent balance and weak brakes. Throughout its original 18-year run, it was crude. Some called it second-rate, but if you were expecting an Acura NSX, it's probably you who had the problem. With appropriate skill and judgment, the Viper was more effective—faster—than hero cars that cost substantially more.

To send the last Viper into history, Chrysler's SRT group sent Dominik Farnbacher to the Nürburgring in a 2010 ACR coupe. Farnbacher drove it around the 12.9-mile Nordschleife in 7:12.13—faster than a Lexus LFA Nürburgring, a Porsche 997 GT2 RS, a Ferrari Enzo or a Maserati MC12. Faster than any road-certified production car sold legally in the United States.

Now dawns a new era with a fifth-generation Viper, branded SRT, not Dodge, and aimed at a broader swath of wealthy car enthusiasts, and a graybeard who remembers the first launch wonders whether the world needs a Viper for the Audi R8 set. Really. How badly do we want the Viper to be anything other than what it's always been?

The Viper is the car that car snobs love to diss, all the way to the winner's circle at Le Mans. Rarely has a race car been so readily sneered at and then been so successful. It didn't go exactly as Chrysler said it would, but before the production-based Viper GTS-R retired, it had three class wins at Le Mans, four overalls in the 24-hour races at Daytona and the 'Ring, and five international GT championships.

Crude but effective. The production Viper debuted in January 1992, with a steel-tube frame, an 8.0-liter V10 block from the Dodge Ram pickup, some suspension bits from the Dodge Dakota and nothing to help manage the brutality except the stickiest street tires known. The 1992 (late C4) Chevrolet Corvette introduced Automatic Slip Reduction to harness output from its small-block V8, which had higher specific output than the Viper's V10. The NSX was in its second year: aluminum monocoque, electric power steering, four-channel ABS and VTEC—the first variable valve-timing system in North America. The Viper would not offer A/C until 1994, airbags until the second generation in 1996 or ABS until 2001. It evolved, certainly, but when the fourth generation ceased production in 2010, it was still stuck in the Neanderthal era.

The genesis of this new Viper dates to Chrysler's troubled, post-2008 period of bankruptcy and reorganization. Its birth was an interaction between the faithful (SRT CEO Ralph Gilles) and the doubters (Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne). Gilles proceeded with the design surreptitiously, then authorized a full-size model, because he says “there was no way Sergio would have approved unless he absolutely got it.”

Marchionne got it, and SRT did clinics for what had to be one of the most anticlinic cars extant, with Corvette, R8 and Lamborghini owners. Research confirmed the obvious: R8 and Lamborghini owners would not buy the Viper as it was last sold.

“We came away with some hurt feelings but some fabulous insights,” Gilles says. His designers and engineers had direction for the next Viper, and while they aren't comfortable with the word “refinement,” some level of refinement was what they were looking for.

No one will mistake the 2013 Viper for anything else. Its proportions, chassis and dimensions, the cam-in-block V10 and the balance of its powertrain—all are subtly improved but ultimately familiar. The wheel hubs still come from the Dakota. The visual impact is familiar, too, yet the new Viper looks richer, maybe more jewel-like. The production Viper should feel more bespoke, less kit car, and that's the first step toward broadening its appeal beyond the hard-core Viper Nation.

There's also an infusion of technology. For the first time, the Viper has three-stage traction/stability control with all-off and a launch feature, but that's a government mandate as much as a desire to civilize the car. Mostly, SRT's reach for new Viper owners materializes in the cockpit, through richer design and more space. Designers replaced what Marchionne called Barcaloungers with thin-shell seats from the company that supplies Ferrari. Gilles promises “Bentley grade” leather and an ever-expanding palette of customization options.

To some extent, they tried the same thing with the third-gen, DaimlerChrysler Viper of 2003, and the roadster looked like the original morphed with a Honda S2000. It's tricky threading the line between satisfying the faithful and broadening a hero car's appeal. The questions with the Viper are whether it will work, whether we want it to and whether it matters.

For 19 years, Chrysler averaged precisely 1,476.6 Viper sales annually. Even if the new one doubles that with conquest sales, it won't come close to ensuring Chrysler's solvency over the next 19 years. The Viper is about making Chrysler a legitimate car-folk company, and it always has been. The old one did that, and it sold some SRT4s, SRT8s, Challengers and maybe even some Avenger RTs in the process.

The 2013 Viper will be followed in a year or two by a new iteration of one of its early contemporaries: the Acura NSX. Which supercar prospect excites you more? An evolutionary, in-your-face, 8.4-liter, 640-hp Viper or an NSX with a hybrid powertrain and probably other technology that we've never seen before?